It was braver for him to give Bruce a happy ending. Vastly more controversial.

Good point.

I don't think the Joker won in TDK. Batman did what he did at the end so the Joker wouldn't win. And Batman didn't kill anyone, so Joker didn't get him to break his one rule.

Yeah there was big cover-up, bit credit goes to Bane for exposing it. And Bane did defeat Batman, if only temporarily. The only kind of defeat Batman would ever know in the first place. Bane should've known better than to less with the Bat. Ha.